Was Gergis et al “Withdrawn”?

On June 12, David Karoly stated of the then recently disappeared Gergis et al:

The paper has been put on hold, while an issue with the data processing and methods that we have identified is checked. The paper has not been withdrawn nor has it been retracted.

In a June 13 email to Gergis et al coauthors and Climate Audit antagonists Schmidt, Mann, Steig, Wahl (see documents obtained by Warwick Hughes here), Gergis admitted that the paper was not merely “on hold” (whatever that means), but that they had decided to “voluntarily withdraw” the paper:

we felt that we needed to voluntarily withdraw the paper in press with the journal, amend the text and add some extra supplementary material justifying our method…

this means we will need to resubmit the manuscript to peer review once again…

In Gergis email to authors, she said that 22 of 27 proxies have “significant” correlations after detrending. In fact, only 8 proxies have “significant” correlations using standard allowances for autocorrelation. So the problems are more formidable than she is letting on.

The thing that disturbs me the most is that they clearly didn’t have a handle on what they were doing at all. Compare this with a paper like O’Donnell et al where the data was pushed and poked in every direction to fully understand what it was saying. This one? Not so much.

Out of the 27 initial proxies only 3 cover the period 1000 AD to 1430 (the tree rings from MtRead, Oroko and the coral isotopes from Palmyra). The rest start after 1430 or much later. Steve McI shows above that only one survives as a significant correlation after using standard allowances for autocorrelation: MtRead.
That chops 500 years off the “Australasian temperature reconstruction spanning the last millennium” as just one leg is not enough to stand on.

Why didn’t they use one the many Mosley-Thompson Antarctic ice cores some of which go back millenia? Steve answered this for one of them in his first postscript(Plateau Remote which didn’t show a hockey stick), but what about the rest?
Not the “right” shape, not properly archived, data lost, owners unavailable?What legacy for the Mosley Tompson’s if they are not in the “first multi-proxy warm season (September–February) temperature reconstruction for the combined land and oceanic region of Australasia (0ºS–50ºS, 110ºE–180ºE)” ever? Effort, money and data wasted? The Russians (Vostok) at least contributed 2 proxies to Gergis’ ambitious project.

No many how many times you ask the question you are always left with the obvious answer ‘They picked the proxies that gave them the answer they needed’. The bigger question is how do you stop bias in a single subject like ‘Climate Studies’ where recruitment into the subject is controlled by a group of activists, just look at all the prospectus’s for the courses.

Examples: Thompson drilled Dunde in 1989 (96ºE ~ 40000 years long), Guliya in 1997 (81ºE ~ 500000 years long) and Dasuopu in 2000 86ºE ` 8000 years long). If some says that these are outside the “given” grid I’ll say that Vostok (78ºS) is equally outside that grid.

There are even more problems with the paper. For instance,
– pairs proxies from similar locations with widely different C20th trends (e.g. Rarotonga, Vostok.
– Proxies up to 1300 miles outside the area 0ºS–50ºS, 110ºE–180ºE.
– No proxies from Australian sub-continent.

I have tried to summarize both the high level McIntyre (and JeanS) analysis, and my more basic criticisms in anticipation of the paper’s resurrection.

What continues to amaze me is how stupid these world famous scientists can be. This e-mail of Gergis is so pathetically similar to the faked memo by Gleick and they are both so damn “clever” that they look like a 3rd grader faking a letter to the teacher explaining that he missed the class because he was sick and signing the letter with “my mom”. Amazing. Simply amazing.

Worst entry ever Steve and a mile below your normal standard. For a start Gergis could just have been inaccurate in her wording, or Karoly unaware of her decision, or her decision could have been taking subsequent to Karoly’s statement. And referring to Karoly as “the wedgie” is not funny, just rather childish and inappropriate in a blog of normally such high standards.

Steve:as you observe, the appellation does not comply with blog policies. It has been accordingly removed.

Karoly was the senior author. Gergis would have consulted with him before doing anything. She sent her notice to Journal of Climate on June 8, so Karoly was aware of the decision. The question of whether it had been “withdrawn” occasioned blog discussion at the time, including the non-climate blog Retraction Watch where Karoly placed his comment.

For public consumption, they said that it had not been “withdrawn”, but privately they agreed that it had.

Brilliant work Warwick Hughes and devastating irony – I come to this ‘post-wedgie’ – Steve McIntyre. One of the great Climate Audit posts.

For public consumption, they said that it had not been “withdrawn”, but privately they agreed that it had.

As Paul Matthews pointed out earlier than most. Consider the delightful way Gergis begins:

I also wanted to provide some background to the intense scrutiny our work has received from the notorious Canadian climate change blogger Stephen McIntyre (Climate Audit) since the online release of our study on 17 May:

What Steve “seeks to discredit”, of course, is not the “researchers” but key research that has been audited here and found wanting over key statistical issues. With almost unfailing courtesy, with invitations to the researchers to collaborate, improve their work, improve their methods, and improve the publication process (as now will be required from next year by UK law), and with no preconceptions.

Arendt says that when the group leader would get caught in a public lie, outsiders and critics would say “Now, he’ll be humiliated in front of his followers, and they’ll reject him.” The followers, however, saw it differently. They would say “Ha – our leader lies to their faces, and they take it!”

Two things. First there is a truth for insiders/believers, and a ‘truth’ for outsiders/non-believers. There is no moral sanction against lying to outsiders, because they are not worthy of moral consideration. Second, knowledge of lies by leaders never shake the faith of followers – in fact, such knowledge serves only to reinforce belief.

In the e-mail from Joelle Gergis September 27 2011: “..contributors of non-publicly available data used in this study are automatically considered coauthors unless you’d prefer acknowledgement rather than the responsibility of coauthorship”.

Reward having data off line? (although for this article it might be a punishment)

If the new article archives the previously unpublished series, this could be an easy way for the contributor to get their data published in an article with their name on it.

But it ordinarily would be better for the contributor to have first published and archived it in an article that explains how the data was collected, what assumptions were made in dating it, etc, and in which the contributor stands out as the lead author. The contributor would then get a valuable citation every time the data is used in a subsequent paper.

But I suspect that many climate scientists abuse this system by perpetually withholding the data in order to be listed as a coauthor every time it is used. Or if it is being archived in each paper, to only release it a few years at a time so that there is always a fresh component. Elisabeth Isaksson comes to mind: https://climateaudit.org/2009/08/17/svalbards-lost-decades/#comment-191878

I just noticed that I had this version; I thought that it had disappeared without a trace. It states on its face:

This is a preliminary PDF of the author-produced
manuscript that has been peer-reviewed and
accepted for publication. Since it is being posted
so soon after acceptance, it has not yet been
copyedited, formatted, or processed by AMS
Publications. This preliminary version of the
manuscript may be downloaded, distributed, and
cited, but please be aware that there will be visual
differences and possibly some content differences
between this version and the final published version.

Editor Broccoli challenged my email to him observing that the article had been “disappeared” from the journal as follows:

The article in question did not “disappear” from the Journal of Climate. It was removed from a preprint server for accepted manuscripts that have not yet been published. AMS maintains this preprint server for the convenience of authors and readers. The manuscripts on this server are labeled as “preliminary” and are not in final form.

Steve McIntyre,
When a manuscript is accepted for publication, is not the time when it becomes “a paper” ?
If so, then Broccoli’s reference to it as a manuscript is a downgrade that appears intentional.

Gergis refused to provide the prescreened data, challenging me to collect that data from the original authors. But numerous authors who are shown as data-contributor coauthors contributed data that was screened out and which Gergis therefore refused to provide. On this reasoning, shouldn’t they be removed from the list of data contributors.

Tas van Ommen is in this category, as are CUllen, Grierson, Goodwin and others.

A bit OT but found through e-mail of 11 April 2011 in the above mentioned FOI links of Warwick Hughes.

Australian archivist Gionni di Gavio from Newcastle University (AU) found a “register, belonging to leading New England pastoralist, meteorologist and astronomer Algernon Henry Belfield (1838-1922), brings to a conclusion the climate records meticulously collected at his observatory and weather recording facilities at Eversleigh Station over a period of 45 years.”
It is in handwritten note book form. So far so good.

The above mentioned Farmers notebook is “currently only in ‘scanned’ format, it hasn’t been turned into usable data.” and “Seems a shame that at the moment it’s just sitting quietly in our library not being used!”, Heather Stevens wrote on April 11 2011 here

As data synthesis is the aim of the workshop, […] Discussion of data availability, innovative
attempts at data synthesis and examples of multi-disciplinary collaboration are particularly
encouraged. [emphasis added -hro]

What could more “innovative” in “data synthesis” than that which results in an iconic graphical representation derived from data from an apple series which have been (conveniently truncated to avoid displaying the bad apples and) seamlessly spliced with data from a later, shorter – but more fruitful – orange series?!

But, unless Gergis et al can come up with a novel criterion for accepting/rejecting proxies, and overcome geographical considerations AND overcome the problems of screening bias, then the Gergis Mk2 will have as short a life as the original paper that was put on hold (or withdrawn or retracted).

Given the nature and the effectiveness of peer review in the climate-science field it’s a wonder they even bother with the paper at all, they might as well quit after a suitably doom-mongering abstract.

Re: Richard Drake (Oct 18 14:03),
the missing link in today’s chain between CA and RW seems to be Skiphill. I actually spotted this by following my old bookmark (after seeing John Ritson’s comment), but little googling reveals that this was spotted already on September 9th by wat dabney.

So it was withdrawn by 9th September, h/t wat, who may not have known down under how much that info would have counted in these parts. How strange in any case that nobody concerned wrote a personal note to you, both as a courtesy and mark of gratitude. I’m sure we all live in hope on that.